Oh my: New book claims Obama White House is “hostile” to women

posted at 7:22 pm on September 16, 2011 by Allahpundit

A little something new for that already bulging “If only Democrats had nominated Hillary instead” file. I don’t get it. How could women feel uncomfortable in a White House run by a character as cuddly as Rahm Emanuel?

The bad news? Apparently our nation’s economic policy was shaped by some sort of liberal Delta Tau Chi, with Larry Summers as “Bluto.” The good news? This is going to make for a sweet new entry on “Attack Watch.”

“This place would be in court for a hostile workplace,” former White House communications director Anita Dunn is quoted as saying. “Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.”…

“I felt like a piece of meat,” Christina Romer, former head of the Council of Economic Advisers, said of one meeting in which Suskind writes she was “boxed out” by Summers…

“The president has a real woman problem,” an unnamed high-ranking female official told Suskind. “ The idea of the boys’ club being just Larry and Rahm isn’t really fair. He [Obama] was just as responsible himself.”…

Obama, according to the book published by Harper Collins, failed to call on Romer after asking her male colleagues for their opinions. The snub prompted Romer to pass a note to Summers where she threatened to walk out of the dinner, according to the book.

The Obama White House has long been dogged by similar claims of exclusivity — his golf outings have been typically all-male affairs, though Melody Barnes, who heads the Domestic Policy Council was invited on at least one round of golf in October 2009 after much grumbling about Obama’s choice of golf buddies.

Read the whole piece. Dunn evidently thought better of her “hostility” accusation after making it to Ron Suskind, the book’s author, because when the Post contacted her to follow-up for this story, she insisted she’d never said it and that Obama totally “values having strong women around him” or whatever. Uh huh. And so it came to be that another left-wing feminist, forced to choose between party and cause, bit her lip for the team. It is, after all, an election year.